The Cleveland Cavaliers drastically reshaped their roster in the final hours before the N.B.A.’s annual trade deadline, agreeing to two separate deals to acquire Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr. from the Los Angeles Lakers, George Hill from the Sacramento Kings and Rodney Hood from the Utah Jazz.

To make those moves happen and infuse its team with much-needed youth and athleticism, Cleveland shipped out six veteran players — including the former All-Star guard Isaiah Thomas — and swung a third trade to allow another former All-Star, Dwyane Wade, to return to the Miami Heat, according to two people who requested anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the trades publicly.

In the first trade, Cleveland dealt the expiring contracts of Thomas and Channing Frye — along with its first-round pick in June, protected 1-3 — to the Lakers for Clarkson and Nance.

“Jordan and Larry add athleticism, energy and length to both ends of the court for us,” Koby Altman, the Cavaliers general manager, said in a statement. “This trade is also a reflection of our continuing commitment to invest in our roster in ways that help us evolve and compete at the highest level now and into the future.”

Image

The Lakers’ Jordan Clarkson is headed to Cleveland in a trade for Isaiah Thomas.CreditJae C. Hong/Associated Press

The second trade is a three-team deal with Utah and Sacramento that will send Cleveland’s Iman Shumpert and Utah’s Joe Johnson to Sacramento along with a 2020 second-round pick via Miami and $3.2 million in cash considerations, with Sacramento’s Hill and Utah’s Hood going to Cleveland and the Cavaliers’ Jae Crowder and Derrick Rose joining the Jazz. The third trade, to accommodate Wade’s wishes to rejoin the team that drafted him, will send Wade back to Miami for a heavily protected future second-round pick.

The succession of moves, however, does not come without great risk for the Cavaliers and their first-year general manager, Altman, whose trade with the Lakers could help Los Angeles immensely in its expected pursuit of LeBron James in free agency this summer.

The Lakers are projected to have about $50 million in salary-cap space this summer after shedding the contracts of Clarkson and Nance. That figure could increase to the $70 million range if the Lakers are successful in finding a trade home for Julius Randle between now and July 1 and waiving and stretching the salary of the veteran swingman Luol Deng, which would give them more than sufficient cap space to pursue both James and Paul George.

The Cavaliers, though, clearly felt as if they had no alternative but to swing multiple trades on deadline day to change the atmosphere within their locker room to try to save their current season, sending a powerful message to James in the process about their intent to persuade the Akron, Ohio, native to stay with his home-state team when he becomes a free agent July 1.

Cleveland is 7-13 since Christmas and, amid rising tensions in the locker room and season-long concerns about its defensive deficiencies, apparently felt as though it had to ship Thomas out immediately in the quest for better team chemistry.

Acquired in the August blockbuster deal that sent the All-Star guard Kyrie Irving to Boston, Thomas missed the first 36 games of the season to complete his recovery from a longstanding right hip injury. Thomas then struggled to fit in with his new team upon returning and publicly clashed this week with Coach Tyronn Lue when he said that the Cavaliers were struggling to make in-game adjustments.

“That’s not true,” Lue told reporters in Cleveland on Wednesday before the Cavaliers’ stirring 140-138 overtime victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Speaking to Cleveland.com on Thursday after news of the trade began to spread, Thomas’s agent, Aaron Goodwin, said: “He’s worked too hard to get back, and he’s a ball-dominant player. It’s LeBron’s ball, and this clearly wasn’t working.”

Referring to Altman, Goodwin added: “Koby and I have had enough conversations where it was clear, with the way the system was going, it wasn’t beneficial for either party. This is a good opportunity for Isaiah.”

The subsequent three-team trade with Utah and Sacramento not only enabled Cleveland to acquire a player it had been targeting for weeks in Hill but also add the highly coveted Hood, who will be a restricted free agent this summer and had attracted considerable trade interest this month through his scoring potential with the Jazz.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B12 of the New York edition with the headline: Just Before the Deadline, the Cavaliers Decide to Trade Experience for Youth. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe